Miss Neko

Freitag, 18. Juli 2014

Kimono club, big events & Kitsuke ♥ Basic Kimono knowledge for you !

Hi there (^-^)v

Today I will write about the Kimono club of my University.

I joined it shortly after I started studying, so I'm practising

"The art of wearing Kimono" = Kitsuke 着付け every week since

almost 2 years now. I made very good friends during that time andKitsuke truly woke a deep passion within me ♥Now you might be wondering:"But what do you do in a Kimono club ?"Well wearing a Kimono is not just putting over a bathrobe andbinding a belt around it. There are countless ways of bindingthe so called Obi . And putting on the Kimono the right way can also bequite complicated at first. But if you practise it a lot it reallygets way easier and you get faster and faster. By now I am able toput on a cotton summer Kimono called Yukata浴衣and tie it's

Hanhaba Obi 半巾帯 in about 5 minutes.

So there are several different kinds of Obi and also Kimono.

Which one of them you choose to wear depents on the occasion.

There are very formal Kimono like the Furisode 振袖 for unmarried young girls or informal ones for daily life like the Komon 小紋.Here is some basic information about Kimono :

Important note for beginners :When you put on your Yukata/Kimono please don't everforget to make the "Ohashori". It is the small fold rightbeneath the Obi you can see on the picture above.It should be about 5-8 cm wide. It is just not right if youdon't do it and it will be quite strange if people whoknow about Kimono see you that way...However if your Kimono is too short so you can not make this foldtake a thin summer scarf or ideally an Obiage and bind it under yourKimono right where the Ohashori should have been.The scarf/Obiage can substitute the fold.This is an approved way to do it according to Kitsuke rules.It is not too hard to put on the Kimono the right wayand there are lots of good tutorials on youtube for this !Anyhow if you are not willing to put at least this little effort into your Kimono outfit I'd suggest you better do notdo it and look for an easier outfit ! It's shocking what kind of messy "Kimono" outfits Ihad to witness on some cons. I'm not saying this in vain !If you want help I'm always happy to offer it to youand our club saved more than 1 messy Kimono outfiton a con ;) But there are too many people who are very cocky about their badly put on outfits and it's sad that theydon't seek help with it when they obviously can't handle it yet.Everybody was a beginner once, there is no shame about it.I'm not perfect yet neither ^^Kimono shoes :

Important fact that people often get wrong :

A normal Kimono outfit has NOTHING to do with being a Geisha !Don't say you wear a "Geisha outfit" if you're just wearing a normal cotton Yukata or any other normal Kimono !Sadly we hear things like "Oh look a Geisha girl" by strangersway too often. An outfit for a Geisha is a whole other thing !

last year and this year again. She really is a huge role model for me.A truly great woman. I am glad I had the chance to get to know her a littleand to be taught so many great things by her.Moreover our club helped at the

When you see me standing alone on a photo it is only because mydress-up partner went to get some things for us, or folded something etc.The day was extremely busy and there were lots of things to do.Doing a Bunko-musubi tie for the Obi :

We had lots of families as costumers. There were little toddlers and alsoolder women and man. Of course there are Kimono for men as well.

It's great to see how this connects people.

Kimono & Kitsuke is truly for everybody. It was an absolutely lovelyexperience for me to be part of this event.

The buddhist temple at the Eko-House in which we dressed-up the people :

~♥~

One day Sawa-Sensei taught me and some other women how

to do a traditional hairdo for Kimono which she also wears a lot.

I really love how it looks *-* ♥

I still need to practise it as it's quite difficult >.<

The look from the front:

Another event our club Kimono was invited to was the celebration of the

They held a garden party at the residence of the Japanese General consul.

Lots of members of the club were invited and I also met some ofthe professors of my major course "Modern Japan".My boyfriend Valentin also joined the event as he was our

photographer for that day. I had some very interesting conversations

that day and met a really nice woman who planned on doing a Sanshin course in Düsseldorf. I own a Sanshin since almost 3years now and will join this course when it starts in the end of this year.I tried to practise a little on my own but it wasn't so effective.

So I'm really excited about it ♥

The Japanese club publishes it's own magazine a few times each year

and sends it to it's members. As I'm a member as well I get it, too.The issue of June 2014 was about the 50 year anniversary :

At the event everybody got Sake due to the festive occasion. It was served in a wooden box called Masu枡升.

We could take the Masu home with us as memory ^-^

Of course there also was a huge Japanese buffet.They even had pink sushi ♥

I can't show you pictures of the event or the big Japanese gardenof the residence due to privacy.

But I can show you my outfit for that day.

Normally you would wear a Houmongi to this occasion but at that timewe had none that would have been long enough to fit my height.

So I had to wear a Komon (informal) but I combined a

Niju-Daiko musubi 二重太鼓 Obi tie with it which is very formal again.

Kimono club of the Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf :

So by now you know that "The art of wearing Kimono" is really complicatedand you need to practise lots of things. Therefore our club meetsonce a week to practise dresseng ourself and others.Here are some of the most common ways to tie the Obithat I can do by now.Fukura-suzume musubi ふくら雀 :

I did this on one of our club members with a new Obi of mine ^^The knot resembles a sparrow with its wings spread and is worn only by unmarried women. It is suitable for formal occasions and is only worn with a Furisode. Traditionally, the Fukura-suzume musubi worn with a furisode indicated a woman was available for marriage.Bunko-musubi :

These two tie-techniques can't be done by yourself. I can only tie themfor others, when I want to wear it myself another person has to tie it for me.So we usually practise this on each other.The next Obi tie-technique can be done by yourself.The Niju-Daiko musubi 二重太鼓 :

It is a very formal way to wear the Obi.I can also do the simple version of it the so called Taiko musubi.It looks the same but is done with a different kind of Obi andonly has one layer of fabric for the "drum" on the back instead of2 layers like the Niju-Daiko.

Here's a snapshot I took during our practise, that day I didn't weara Kimono I only put on a simple Hanhaba Obi over my normal clothesto practise some different tie-techniques with it :

The members of our club all got several books andmagazines about Kimono with tutorials for different tie-techniquesand ways to wear Kimono. Here is one of my magazines:

The most recent event at which our club had a dressing stallwas the Japan-Day at the LSI Bochum on the 12th of July

At the event you could see a variety of things about Japanese cultureand you could also take part in courses. They taught Japanese, Calligraphie, Ikebana and more.At our stall we dressed up people in Kimono for free, so we hada lot of work to do but I really enjoyed it. It was great to see thatso many people wanted to get dressed and learn about Kimono.Sadly I had no time to go and look at the other displays at the LSIbut one of our club members took some photos for all of us.Ikebana:

~♥~

Before all the workshops started there was a Kendo demonstrationin the hall of the building. It was really cool and stunning ! *-*

~♪~

These were some of the Furisode sets of our dressing stall :

You might have noticed that I wear my blue Yukata a lot to eventsrecently ^-^ I must say I really love it, I got it for my birthdaythis year from my friend Sarah who's also in the Kimono club of my university. Thanks so much again ♥The past few days here in Düsseldorf have been extremely hot.It's 32°C (ca. 89,6 °F) right now !

To avoid misunderstandings :

I am a member of 2 Kimono clubs ♥

The one club is from my University and theother club is from the Japanese club Düsseldorf and iscalled "Hiyorikai". The Hiyorikai mainly consist of Japanesewomen. Becci the leader of our University's club is alsoa member of the Hiyorikai and she introduced me tothe Japanese club. I'm deeply thankful for that.So the Hiyorikai is also Japanese language practise for me.

I still need to improve so much. I'm glad Becci is there with me.

Because of the weather and also the season the Hiyorikai

decided to wear Yukata this week.

It's the usual clothing for summer and summer festivals, so called

Natsu Matsuri. After we put on our Kimono we always eat some snacksand drink tea. This time we had Hojicha as cold drink

due to the temperatures. You can get this one at theWaraku in Düsseldorf. It's super delicious !And it's even 100% natural and untreated.

Thanksies sweetie for sharing so much! ♡ ^___^Some time got to know kimonos and yukatas a bit more, but it's always good to hear from someone who has experience and japanloverme-pics are always super adorable! ♡ ♡

Thanks for sharing this! I think kimonos and yukatas are very interesting and beautiful! I got to try a kimono once when I was like 10 years old. xD Bad thing I didn't really understand it then... It would be fun to own a kimono or yukata but I should first study hard how to put them on! :D

Ahhh how pretty! The high school where I will be attending this coming school year used to have culture club and I was looking forward to it so so much. But sadly all the members just graduated. But that doesn't mean I can't practice at home, ne? ^^

You look amazing in your kimono, I am very jealous!! I would love to get the opportunity to get all dressed up like that!! I'm very interested in geisha and maiko; I love the make-up and hairstyles!!Belle xox